Young women in Dhaka, Bangladesh, hold placards as they stand to form a human chain to protest the recent gang rape of a female medical student on a moving bus in New Delhi. / A.M. Ahad, AP

by Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

by Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

Indian-American women watching the handling of a gang rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi say that the public condemnation and calls for better protections for women are long overdue.

Radhika Magoo, a bank vice president in the Detroit area who moved to the United States in 2001 at age 20, says she was harassed by strangers in the streets of Bombay.

"It's about time that somebody talked about it," she said.

Five men have been charged with attacking the 23-year-old student and a male friend on a bus as it was driven through the streets of India's capital on Dec. 16. The woman was raped and assaulted with a metal bar and died of her injuries.

The suspects' lawyer, Manohar Lal Sharma, said his clients are innocent and were beaten by police and forced into making incriminating statements.

The case has received significant public attention, and women and men have organized protests in many cities against what they say is a broken legal system that does not bring enough rapists to justice.

Women at the protests have spoken of rampant verbal abuse, gropings and rapes. They say investigators often blame victims for behaviors that invite such attacks.

In the case of the Dec. 16 murder, the woman and her male friend were coming home from a movie at a mall when they boarded a bus on which the defendants were passengers. The woman's friend said he tried to defend her but was beaten unconscious. The two were dumped from the bus after the attack.

Public condemnation in India has been outspoken. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has promised changes to improve police and judicial handling of rape cases and to increase penalties.

Growing up in Mumbai, India, Magoo says it was not uncommon to be harassed in public.

"You'd see a bunch of guys follow you around, or call you names," Magoo said. "No point in confronting them, because it's you and your girlfriend with three or four guys. Even if you told them to back off, it won't make any difference."

On a visit to New Delhi two years ago, Magoo saw a man force his way past a female police officer who tried to deny him entry to the women-only section of the Delhi subway.

"He started cussing her out and he walked in anyhow," Magoo said.

She thinks the outcry in India is significant and could actually be the start of a new attitude toward women.

"These middle-class women are the ones that typically stand up for themselves," Magoo says. "The more they raise their voice, the more they can make some of these changes happen. ... It may take years but it's going in the right direction."

Alka Kudesia, a board member at the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, agrees that the outcry may lead to real change in laws and attitudes regarding how women should be treated. She credits social media tools for making it easier for Indian women to organize.

"People can make a change in our government and political policy throughout the world because people can get their voice out," Kudesia said.

Kudesia says women are gaining influence because they are increasingly earning more.

Upward mobility and education

Access to television and other media has increased consumerism among middle-class families who were once satisfied with comfortable shelter, enough food and clothes for the family, she said.

"Now people want cars, vehicles, better education, vacation. People want more money and that requires two paychecks," she said. "Women are more active in the economy and politics. There are a lot of working women now."

The New Delhi rape case comes after a string of other rapes in public places in India that did not provoke such an outcry, says Poulami Roychowdhury, a doctoral candidate at New York University whose research focuses on law and gender violence in India.

The outcry this time, she said, may have to do with the savagery of the attack and that daughters are increasingly going off to college as the victim had done, moving from her hometown to get an education.

"She may be emblematic of a hope that middle-class Indians have for upward mobility," Roychowdhury said.

Poorer Indian women have always worked outside the home, she said. But middle-class women who are educated and have connections to political players started entering the workforce in significant numbers only in the past generation or two, Roychowdhury said.

"Now there's a class of women in public space who have a greater ability to have their voices heard," she said. "Women who were in public space before were being sexually violated but didn't have that power."

The report described widespread sexual harassment, citing a survey released by the United Nations Development Fund for Women and Jagori, a women's rights group. The survey found that two-thirds (66%) of women in Delhi, the district of the capital, had been sexually harassed between two and five times in 2010; more than 40% of incidents of harassment and molestation occurred in broad daylight, and nearly 45% of women believed that "the police will do nothing" if approached, it said.

A previous survey, in 2010, found that 88% of female employees in the information technology and outsourcing industry had faced some form of sexual harassment at work, most (66%) at the hands of a superior.

Ambassador Melanne Verveer, the State Department's ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, says the popular reaction in India and subsequent government response is an encouraging sign that change will occur.

"You're seeing people in the streets saying we really have to do better in all of our society, that's a positive thing," she said. "Everything that's happened since has been an effort not to cover up, not to say there's nothing we need to do, but on the government's part and organizations and average citizens to say 'we need to do a better job.' And that's very important."

Roychowdhury says she is not sure whether the attack will lead to lasting action.

"Will this lead to another law on the books that doesn't get implemented and nothing happens, or will this lead to real change? I have no idea," Roychowdhury said.

Indian law requires one-third of seats in the national Legislature to be reserved for women, and women are taking part in politics throughout the country at all levels. The United States funds projects in India to train to judges and law enforcement on women's issues, strengthen women's rights groups and support efforts to change cultural norms that allow such violence against women to persist.

The State Department in 2011 directed a $50,000 grant by the Avon cosmetics company to the Human Rights Law Network in New Delhi, for a pilot program to help female victims of violence "combat violations of their rights." Another Avon grant was directed to a street-theater program designed to change attitudes of men and boys toward women and violence in 50 Indian villages.

"You need to work at the top -- governments have a responsibility, there are serious law enforcement issues that need to be addressed -- and you need to work at the grass-roots level," Verveer said.

Verveer describes the problem as an epidemic that affects all countries to varying degrees, including the United States. Her main message is: "This is not a cultural matter, not a private matter, this is a criminal matter."